


Turbulent

by Patricia_Sage



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 06:57:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9536906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patricia_Sage/pseuds/Patricia_Sage
Summary: "His energy is too turbulent.  I need calm, and he is not calm." Shadowhunters S02E05





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on Shadowhunters S02E05: "Dust and Shadows". Spoilers from this episode and the previous episode.

Alec couldn’t look Clary in the eye. 

It was as if there was a ward around her, keeping the weak, the unworthy, the killers away. 

He didn’t remember much from those thirty seconds. Horrible, dark flashes came to him in his dreams—the look on her face, the splitting of her ribs. Possessed mundanes were too ignorant to affiliate their nightmares with the experience, but Alec was blessed with dreadful awareness. 

Thirty seconds. It took less than a minute for him to completely destroy Clary’s world with his bare hands.

He couldn’t look her in the eye. He couldn’t bear to see himself reflected in green, the same green he tore the light from.

And so he kept his distance. He removed himself from her company, from his family’s company, from the place he paradoxically called home and a crime scene.

He shot arrows into the night, pretending that each star was every foolish mistake he had ever made. (There were an incomprehensible amount of stars.) He purposely sought out demons in the dark, denying every offer of backup that Jace insisted on. If he couldn’t protect them, he didn’t deserve their protection.

When he was injured, he ignored the instinctive movement of his hand toward his stele. 

Magnus noticed his injuries. Alec benignly allowed the warlock to heal him in order to erase that troubled expression off his narrow, beautiful features. But Alec would not be using an iratze the next time he was hurt. Magnus knew this. The expression stayed, and green cat-eyes found their way into Alec’s dreams as well.

When Alec finally appeared at Clary’s bedroom door, she lashed out like a caged animal, and he accepted this punishment like all the others, with a lowered head and gritted teeth. She told him about her plan. (Stupid, Reckless, said his brain. Shut Up, replied his aching body.)

And, of course, nothing was that easy. Of course Clary ended up risking everything for nothing. 

And, of course, Alec wasn’t there to save her.

Nothing was repaired. Clary cried through the funeral. And Alec fought the burning behind his eyes. (It matched the fire of loathing in his veins.)


End file.
